Competition is an integral part of our society. From the Coliseum in Rome, Italy to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx of New York City for centuries, people all around the world have gathered in stadiums, arenas, and around televisions to watch athletes compete. In return, sports teams accumulate billions of dollars in revenue each year. Many people who become sport’s fans become extremely invested in their teams and expect a lot out of their players. These players train most of their lives to be able to compete at an elite level. Athletes have always searched for ways to excel such as new training methods, advanced technology, and coaching. They feel immense pressure to perform from their coaches, teammates, sponsors, fans, and even themselves. With this pressure comes temptation to take short cuts. Competitors have turned to drug doping. Drug doping is defined as the consumption of illegal drugs in order to enhance performance in athletic competition. “We as spectators push athletes to be the absolute best, and in the process create the culture where doping is needed to reach those heights.” (Ian Steadman, Wired) Drug doping is unhealthy, dangerous, and illegal. Recently, the question of whether legalization of performing-enhancing drugs should be considered. This has become a hot topic within the media circles. Athletes should not depend on artificial substances in order to achieve at a higher level. Instead, athletes should focus on hard work, dedication, and determination. Allowing drugs in competitive sports would not only set a bad example for admiring youth, but also negatively impact the health of competitors.

Over the decades, Athletes from different parts of the world have been caught drug doping. These athletes are willing to risk their careers as well as credibility to obtain the benefits from performance-enhancing drugs. They believe the benefits outweigh the risks, both professionally and physically. Some athletes become so focused on winning that they begin to block out all the risks they could incur. In reality, the physical impact of drug use on an athlete’s body is detrimental. Performance-enhancing drugs are illegal in competitive sports and should stay this way as athletes should work hard and train rather than depending on artificial means to excel. Professional athletes are well aware of the fact that drug doping is illegal and unhealthy, yet they continue to use them to increase their chances of winning. Some athletes contend that taking these types of drugs is merely an innocent mistake. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency came out with an eight-page guide in 2017 listing the substances prohibited at all times both in and out of competition. The most common types of drugs abused by athletes include: Anabolic Steroids, Androstenedione, Human Growth Hormone, Erythropoietin, Diuretics, Creatine, and Stimulants. The British Broadcast Corporation’s article says, “Steroids, stimulants and other drugs can help athletes cheat by building muscle mass, increasing endurance, speeding up reaction times, helping them recover quickly so that they can train for longer, and by hiding other substances in their system.” (BBC newsround) The lure of fame and fortune along with being a peak athlete can sound tempting and persuade athletes to want to take these performance-enhancing drugs even though they can come with severe side effects. Individuals may suffer from breast development, shrunken testicles, infertility, severe acne, tendonitis, high blood pressure, liver abnormalities, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism, blood cancers and tumors. Many of these medications have been banned in the United States forcing athletes to use illegal means to purchase the drugs. Illegally accessing medications, often referred to as the 'black market', increases risk factors even more as athletes may be purchasing tainted products. 

Drug doping comes in all types of forms. In addition to ingesting or injecting drugs, athletes have turned to a process known as blood doping. An article from CBC News Health describes the purpose as, “The purpose of blood doping is to increase the quantity of hemoglobin, which carries the energy-fueling oxygen, into the athlete's bloodstream.” (Daniel Schwartz, CBC News) The human body requires about twenty times more oxygen during exercise than at rest. The most common way to perform blood doping is for about a pint of blood to be drawn from the athlete’s body while their hemoglobin is high. It is stored for the athlete and then transfused back into the athlete just before competition. The extra oxygen in the blood aids the athlete’s endurance and fuels the muscles, thereby increasing the athlete’s ability to perform. In the 2004 Olympic games in Athens, the International Olympic Committee investigated an American cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, when he tested positive for unnaturally high hemoglobin levels. After it was determined that he had been blood doping, the International Olympic Committee subsequently stripped him of his gold Olympic medal later that year. Many other athletes have been stripped of their titles and Olympic medals. In recent years, others have even been banned from competing. For example, Maria Sharapova is a famous Russian tennis star and a highly celebrated athlete. She has been ranked number one in the world and has won five grand slam titles along with a silver Olympic medal. The world was shocked when Maria Sharapova failed a drug test for the Australian Open testing positive for the drug, meldonium. Although Maria Sharapova said she had been taking the drug since 2006 for a heart condition, the International Tennis Foundation suspended her from the sport for a fifteen month time period for taking a banned substance. The head of the World Tennis Association said, “It is important at all times for players to be aware of the rules and to follow them.” (Simon, World Tennis Association) Anti-Drug Associations wanted to take advantage of Sharapova’s platform and use her as an example for other athletes.

Many associations such as the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency have gone to great length in order to keep the playing field level and ensure worldwide competition is fair. Qualified doctors and experienced researchers have created complex tests to detect any kind of illegal substance abuse. One of the most common ways to detect drug doping is through a process known as mass spectrometry, which is essentially a urine sample. This method can potentially be faulty as the amounts of drugs in the sample can be too small. Some athletes are required to produce a sample of blood to detect oxygen carriers. Scientists with the International Olympic Committee are tasked with bringing the samples to a lab to check for traces of the banned substances that are listed in the athlete guide to the 2017 prohibited drug list. Through these tests, scientists have the ability to retrace the athlete’s steps over the previous months to determine whether or not they have taken illegal drugs during this time. This allows officials to figure out if the athletes haven’t taken these drugs even if it was not recently. If any types of these drugs are found the athlete is able to request a second test, but if they have no explanation for a second positive test they will be put under investigation and eventually suspended from competition. Because players have been generating new ways to get away with cheating, the World Anti-Doping Agency has formed a new way to identify cheaters called the athlete biological passport program or ABP. The World Anti-Doping Association explains ABP as, “The fundamental principle of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) is to monitor selected biological variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself.” The World Anti-Doping Association records professional athlete’s biological makeup and keeps it on file and refers back to it with each drug test. It has been the most effective method in catching cheaters and fighting the war on the drugs within athletics.

Even though there are effective tests to detect performance-enhancing drugs, many athletes continue to get away with it. Athletes have become creative in ways of hiding their performance enhancing drugs as they are normally are ahead of the game in finding ways to get around the testing. They are willing to take it to the extremes and work hard at cheating rather than working hard at their sport. They have recently come up with a new way to evade detection known as micro dosing. Competitors take small doses of drugs over a period of time. The doses are small enough to not appear on a drug test, but still have the same effects as the participant. In the past, athletes have been known to replace their unclean urine with clean urine from a teammate or associate. Without having an official to watch the urine come from the athlete into the sample cup there is no safe way to know whether or not it is actually the athlete’s urine. Methods such as these have helped many athletes get away with cheating, but others have not had as much luck. For example, Lance Armstrong is a well-known American triathlete and professional cyclist. He is a World Cycling Champion and has competed in three separate Olympic games. Beginning in 1999, Lance Armstrong achieved some of his greatest accomplishments earning seven consecutive Tour de France titles. He has made millions of dollars off of his success from sponsors and by creating his own brand known as, “Livestrong.” However, some viewers became skeptical of Lance Armstrong’s successes. In 2004, a story was written about an Italian doctor supplying performance-enhancing drugs to Armstrong and his teammates. Investigations began on Lance Armstrong along with his teammates, who decided to turn on him and testify against him. Lance Armstrong continued to deny the cheating rumors, but in 2012 the United States Anti-Doping Agency stripped him of all seven of his Tour de France titles and banned him from cycling for life. “In January 2013, during a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career, beginning in the mid-1990s. During his interview with Winfrey, Armstrong stated that he took the hormones cortisone, testosterone and erythropoietin (also known as EPO), and conducted blood transfusions to boost his oxygen levels.” (Biography.com Editors, Lance Armstrong Biography) He described his cheating scandal as a "ruthless desire to win ... the level that it went to, for whatever reason, is a flaw." The desire to win is not a respectable excuse for lying to millions of people and cheating your way through competitions. 

     Spectators place athletes on a pedestal. They are role models for the youth and those with the same dream as they once had. Those with good morals and values would agree drug doping is setting an immoral example for younger generations. Drug doping is encouraging children to turn to drugs instead of teaching them the core values of hard work, determination, and dedication. “Cheating is taking away credibility, not only from yourself as a person, but from the activity you are cheating in.” (Boris Godzinevski, Bleacher Report) If we allow cheating in sports, will cheating be justified in other aspects of life? There is a fine line between right and wrong, and cheating is simply wrong. The Canadian Olympic gymnast, Kyle Shewfelt, once said, “Honestly, it's not the medals that I feel so proud of. It's the way I conducted myself as an athlete, and the hard work that I put forward.” He is a prime example of an honest athlete achieving at an elite level without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.

On the other hand, people argue that competitors have been abusing drugs for centuries and will continue to take them. Therefore, the world should accept the fact that it will continue to happen and take steps towards legalizing drug doping. They offer an alternative and promote “Safe Doping” which is setting a safe limit on doping by prescribing athletes performance-enhancing drugs. People on this side believe that today’s athletes have a lot to live up to and cannot compare to the Olympians who have come before them. They think it is unfair because of the illegal drugs athletes took before officials could ever detect them. If this is true, how do you explain records being broken each year by honest and talented athletes? Instead of blaming the past for today’s obstacles, we should look towards the future and consider the guidelines implemented today. These guidelines were implemented for a good reason. We should better inform our athlete’s about the effects of performance-enhancing drugs such as providing more drug education for the players. Officials could implement additional oversight from governing bodies as well as introducing permanent expulsion after one positive drug test. These few strategies would aid the Anti-Drug Associations in fighting the war on drugs in athletics. The world famous competitive swimmer and most decorated Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, is an advocate for the Anti-Drug Doping Association. Phelps says, “Throughout my career, I have suspected that some athletes were cheating, and in some cases those suspicions were confirmed. Given all the testing I, and so many others, have been through, I have a hard time understanding this. … I can’t adequately describe how frustrating it is to see another athlete break through performance barriers in unrealistic time frames, knowing what I had to go through to do it.” (Phelps, Washington Post) He, along with many other honest athletes, are frustrated with the cheating going on in competition and are begging for a fair playing field. 

Sports are a microcosm of our society. Athletes often times represent the best of what our society has to offer. The dedication, the perseverance, and the sportsmanship are principles we can all strive for. However, when cheating is the underlying theme, it can call into question other aspects of our society. Like Mike Marshall once said, “Victory is in the quality of competition and not the final score.” Rather than accepting cheating for what it is in athletics, let us instill core values into the next generations and keep our athletes safe and healthy by maintaining an anti-doping world. 

 